100 hampers with Oscar and 12 days of pitching in!

Today is the first of 12days! 12days of delivering Christmas Hampers and handing out turkeys to families in need. Oscar is one of the people who will be delivering Christmas Hampers. He and the 600 other people who will pitch in are incredible people with incredible stories. More than a few have been with us for 25 years and others take time off work to help out over the month of December.

If you’re looking at this on Saturday, Oscar will be busy delivering hampers as you read this sentence. When I spoke with him earlier at House of Friendship’s Emergency Food Hamper warehouse, he talked about his very ambitious goal of delivering 100 Christmas Hampers in the next 7 days. Last Friday he was getting an early start and heading to HOF’s Christmas Hamper Warehouse for his first load. Saturday, he was hoping to delivery 25 before the end of the day. He is a man with a plan!

In the first three years Oscar estimates that he delivered approximately 70 hampers each year. Last year he made a goal to beat that number – and he did that by delivering about 90 hampers! However, this year Oscar is taking his personal challenge one step further with the hope to deliver over 100 hampers! That’s a lot of routes for long time volunteer Trevor to coordinate, but Oscar will do all of these with a smile!

Volunteering with Christmas Hampers is a lot of fun for Oscar, because he’s usually joined by groups of friends or his wife. But it’s not all about spending time with friends; Oscar values volunteering with Christmas Hampers more than that: “Helping out gives me a chance to deliver food that people wouldn’t otherwise have for the Holidays. It’s almost as if you’re bringing them a Christmas present.”

People are genuinely appreciative when someone delivers a Christmas hamper, similar to what you may see here at our program. But everyone reacts differently; sometimes people invite you in for coffee and others barely want to open the door. And sometimes you almost get a parking ticket for your vehicle hanging over the sidewalk when it’s snowing late at night and you’re struggling to make sure you have the right address.

In the end you never know what to expect when you’re out delivering Christmas hampers, but all the smiles in the end are what keep Oscar volunteering year after year. Thank you for your support – it would definitely be hard to do all these hampers without your hard work!

Now that you know how Oscar is pitching in for 12days, let us know how you are pitching in. Send us your stories and comments – help us spread the word: PitchIn for 12days! You can also follow us on Twitter and find out more about 12days! on our Facebook Page, YouTube channel and web site.